Source: From DICTIONARY OF NORTH CAROLINA BIOGRAPHY edited by William S. Powell. Copyright (c) 1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.unc.edu

Sellie Robert Winters (21 Sept. 1888-26 July 1953), writer, was born
near Hester in Granville County, the son of William and Mollie
Harris Winters. He was a student at The University of North
Carolina during the years 1909-11. One of his first
contributions to the press was a feature story on the university
published in the Norfolk Landmark on 26 Nov. 1911 and
reprinted in the University Report, No. 100, in April 1912.
Initially he was the Durham and Washington, D.C., correspondent for
the Raleigh News, and later he was a Washington
correspondent for the Asheville Citizen, Raleigh News
and Observer, Wilmington Star , and Winston-Salem
Journal. Winters then became a free-lance journalist and sold his work to a large number of
journals, including American City, American Magazine, Breeder's
Gazette, Commerce and Finance, Country Gentleman, Country Life,
Field and Stream, Hygeia, Journal of Geography, Ladies Home
Journal, Leslie's Weekly, Popular Mechanics, Review of Reviews,
Science Digest, and Scientific America. He also
contributed regular features to the Christian Science
Monitor and the New York Times.

In response to a questionnaire from The University of North
Carolina Alumni Association, Winters once wrote: "If there is any
one contribution that I have made it is this: Take the drab
scientific fact and put that into popular expression and at the
same time retain its authenticity. Around this idea I have
developed what I believe to be an unusual journalistic
career—writing about facts solely—ever subscribing to the
dictum that facts are stranger (and more interesting) than fiction.
That 50 or more journals should buy my copy is some evidence that I
have succeeded in a small measure in putting the idea across."
Apparently he made his last contribution to the press in 1949.

A member of the Methodist church, Winters married Lelia Frances
Wyatt of Petersburg, Va., on 25 Dec. 1914. They had two sons, Early
Wyatt and Herbert Gates. Winters died of a heart attack at his
summer home on Reems Creek near Weaverville in Buncombe County.

SEE: Alumni Files (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill);
Alumni Review . . . The University of North
Carolina 41 (July 1953); Daniel L. Grant, Alumni History of
the University of North Carolina (1924); Reader's Guide to
Periodical Literature (various dates).